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Styrofoam Recycling

Polystyrene, more commonly known as Styrofoam, is universally used as packing material for protecting fragile items in transit. The world produces nearly ten million metric tons of polystyrene to meet the demands of the shipping, food, and other industries.

However, up to 98% of polystyrene scrap material or waste ends up in our waste stream, taking up 25 to 30 percent of landfills.

Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is made up of 95 percent air and five percent foam; with its high volume and low weight ratio, even a small quantity can rapidly fill bins and containers. Recycling of plastic, paper and glass is common in the United States, but recycling polystyrene is not. Japan, Korea, and some European countries recycle as much as 60 percent of their waste EPS but it still poses a problem.

Recycle Tech has taken up this challenge to improve the commitment to recycling EPS in the United States. The big question is, why don’t we recycle more?

One reason is that many believe EPS is not worth recycling. Its difficult to compact nature and lightweight material makes the slightest breeze blow away Styrofoam. Historically those who have tried to recycle EPS struggled to find an efficient yet affordable process to recycle EPS. It used to be a process that is messy and slow, lacking in the ability to process large volumes of material.

Recycle Tech has developed a patent-pending polystyrene extraction system that lowers the cost per operator by densifying all types of polystyrene from food containers to packing material. After the polystyrene has been shredded into scraps, our foam densifier heats up and melts the foam waste, densifying it into solid ingots with the volume compressed down to 90 times its own original volume. With Recycle Tech’s robust foam densifiers, Styrofoam recycling has never been easier than ever.

Recycle Tech will then offer to purchase back the condensed material which is to be used in the production of other products such as picture frames, eye glasses frames, furniture, shoes, and CD cases.

With our machines, customers have satisfactorily reduced their total waste hauling by as much as 80%. Our full line of products is fully supported by our trained technical staff, and have been designed to operate free of problems. One of the fastest growing polystyrene recycling companies in the nation, our customers extend to major retailers such as Ashley Furniture, Wal-Mart, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and more. Manufacturers such as Samsung, HP, Canon, and Mitsubishi are also among the companies using Recycle Tech units.

So take the Recycle Tech challenge. Our machines make the Styrofoam recycling process easier than ever. And with our ingot rebuying services, you can turn your waste into an income source.

The Process of Styrofoam Recycling

The process of recycling Styrofoam involves feeding the collected expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam through conveyor belts into a machine that first shreds the material.

Foam Densifiers transfer the material to a plastic extruder where the foam is exposed to heat and pressure to be melted into a paste. This densified foam is extruded through a small outlet of the machine, and when cooled, solidifies into what is known as an ingot. This melting process is the most efficient, reducing up to 1/90th of its original volume and producing no emissions.

Compactors take the shredded material and compress the foam into tight blocks. This process reduces the volume of the foam by up to 1/50th of its original volume, and turns the Styrofoam into neat and dense blocks. Although not the most efficient, compacting the foam through this method makes for easy transportation of the material.

Another method is using a liquid hydrocarbon known as Limonene, which can be extracted from citrus fruits, to dissolve the foam. On an industrial scale, Sony Corporation of Japan has been using this process as an environment-friendly method of foam recycling.

These forms of EPS can then be easily transported to the required factories for reuse into its new EPS products.